


Crowley Contemplates Falling

by sapphose



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Angst, Introspection, M/M, Sweet Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-14
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-23 00:08:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30046908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sapphose/pseuds/sapphose
Summary: Crowley thinks about Falling and other F-words.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 31





	Crowley Contemplates Falling

**Author's Note:**

> If it looks familiar, you might have seen the draft of the first half I posted on my tumblr (sapphosewrites).

Crowley could tell that Aziraphale sometimes considered asking about the Fall. He never did, probably because it was a question so tactless only a wanker like Gabriel would ask it. (On second thought, not Gabriel, because it would require interest in a being other than Gabriel’s own self.)

Crowley thought sometimes about how he would answer, if Aziraphale did ask.

It hurt.

Of course it hurt, it was The Fucking Fall, She meant for it to hurt and so it bloody well did.

(Once, in a bar, a human man had asked Crowley, as a pick-up line, _Did it hurt, when you fell from heaven_?

Crowley had taken off his sunglasses, turned to the man with hellfire in yellow demon eyes, smiled with fangs, and hissed, _Yessss_.

The man had fled, and Crowley had gone on to get very, _very_ drunk.)

Some humans, Crowley learned, thought demons couldn’t remember before the Fall.

They were wrong.

Some humans, Crowley had learned, had very useful failsafes in their brains. If they were in extreme pain- squeezing an infant through their birth canal, say- their brain very helpfully flooded with chemicals that went in and rewrote the memory afterwards, so they couldn’t recall it. If they experienced trauma, particularly when young, their brain said _oh dear, enough of that, thank you_ , and locked the memory away somewhere else so they couldn’t remember it even if they tried. Dead useful, functions like that. Seemed like the kind of thing angels ought to have had too, particularly if they were meant to Fall, but there was probably a reason they didn’t, something that started with in- and ended with -effable.

Falling made Crowley think of lots of other eff words.

There were other things he could say about Falling, too.

It was easy.

The stories didn’t make it seem so. Heavenly battles are pretty straightforward; take one look, see some bloke fighting God, and think _ah, looks like the wrong side, that_. Made angels created after the Fall think that they would have done the right thing, no doubt.

They didn’t realize how easy it was to Fall. She loved you, after all. She was a Being of ultimate love, and you were the realization of all that love, and it was all one big fucking love-fest, so surely you’d be forgiven a few questions, here and there? Helpful feedback. Constructive criticism, all in the name of that love. It never occurred that She could stop loving, that the love came with conditions.

It was in the moments right before the Fall, that Crowley first understood what being lied to felt like.

After his argument with Aziraphale at the bandstand, Crowley could no longer avoid facing a fact he’d long tried to ignore: Falling, and falling in love with Aziraphale, had a lot in common.

It was easy, so easy you didn’t realize until it was already happening. It hurt, like nothing else could hurt you, because no one can hurt you as much as the people you love.

And, it turned out, it was the wrong thing to do,  because it ultimately brought you to a very dark place.

It was only after the end that was a beginning, after the  Apocalypse-That-Wasn’t, that Crowley reconsidered his conclusions about Falling and falling in love with Aziraphale.

A similarity: if given the choice, he would do it again.

A difference:  falling in love with Aziraphale ended somewhere better than heaven, because the love was real, and  he chose it for himself.


End file.
